Yorkshire Regional Road Race Championships.
Love only having a 13 mile drive from home this morning!This circuit is a tough one with the Elite men completing 8 laps and 8 times up the hill known as Bulmer Bank! Luckily for me I only have to make the ascent 3 times!
This part is the absolute joke, as if you look at the numbers of girls other regions get for a regional race then today's race is ridiculous! It's a hang on to the juniors wheels for as long as you possibly can, and hope you don't get caught from behind by the men who have been dropped, who then drag the other girls back up to you! If you made it a women's only race we wouldn't be short of entries!
This was going to be hard! I rode this circuit 3 years ago, and back then it was only my second ever road race, and it wasn't very good, so I was hoping for better today, one good point was the lack of rain this time!
Form the the start the juniors set the pace high. It's about a mile to Bulmer Bank from the start line. I was too close to the front from the start and I was struggling to find a wheel to follow as the bunch was being strung out!
We reached Bulmer, now this is where it was make or break! I was hoping not to be left in no man's land this year, and stay with the main field for longer or at least to have a group to ride with!
There's a fast descent straight into the climb of Bulmer Bank, and the hill kicks to the left on the bend and gets steeper!
By the time we entered Terrington Village, half way around the first lap, the bunch was strung out again, and I was also hoping that I was now the last girl still hanging on, and it was exactly that, Hanging on! Luckily the pace slowed and I managed to stay with it.
Now for the 50mph descent of Terrington Bank! (although for me more like 40mph.) I had all on trying to hold my bike steady, as the bunch tried to avoid on coming cars on the opposite side of road, coming up the hill, as well a negotiate the rough road surface on the inside of the descent! As you hit the flat at the bottom of the descent, I was spinning out at the back of the bunch, trying to maintain contact!
I was off the back and in the cars, but thankfully Mark Barry (neutral service) got me back up to the bunch for the start of the second lap! We went up the nasty drag of a finishing hill, through the start finish area, and started our approach to Bulmer Bank again! By this time i was losing contact with the main field and this time up Bulmer I didn't make it back onto the main bunch.
The fast tailwind section after the descent of Terrington Bank and the neutral service car goes flying past me, to get back up to the bunch! Next thing there's a bike in the air, as it flies off the roof of the service car, it bounces in the road and lands in the grass verge! I'm just glad it didn't fly off 5 seconds earlier, or I'd have been in danger of being hit by a flying bike at high speed, wouldn't have been good!!!
Lap 3, and 5 miles to go, a group of about 4 master's riders catch me and the CrossTrack rider from behind. One guy is setting the pace, and I continue to work with him to get to the finish. Up the hill to the finish and I'm about 90% certain I've won, but not totally, and it's my brother's yells of "put your arms up", (so I do) that confirms to me that I must have won!
Iona
